Parents on guard

For most of this week, a pair of women in orange vests stood outside

Eastbluff Elementary School after the final bell, guiding children

across the street with hand-held stop signs.

The crossing guards may have looked like city employees, but in

fact, they were volunteers -- and part of an intense campaign among

Eastbluff parents to put official guards in the school’s

neighborhood.

Over the last few days, dozens of parents at Eastbluff have signed

a petition asking the city of Newport Beach to provide crossing

guards at two major intersections near their school. The petitioners

claim that the area near Eastbluff, which also borders Corona del Mar

High School and Our Lady Queen of Angels private school, poses a

safety hazard to children at every grade level.

“You have first-, second-, third-, fourth-graders riding their

bikes on the same street teenagers are driving on,” said Lauren

Young, the school’s PTA president who signed the petition. “We

absolutely need a crossing guard there.”

Parent Jennifer Mannon, the author of the petition, said her group

was planning to send it to the mayor and the City Council. In the

meantime, at the parents’ request, Newport Beach’s Traffic Affairs

Committee has done a study of two intersections outside Eastbluff --

Vista del Oro and Vista del Sol, and Vista del Sol and Eastbluff

Drive -- to determine whether they meet the state’s criteria for

hiring an adult crossing guard.

The school already posts a staff member in front of the campus

every day to guide children across the street, but the nearby

intersections, which many children cross on their routes, have no

supervision.

According to state law, a stop sign controlled area becomes

eligible for a guard if 40 school pedestrians and 500 vehicles pass

through it during any two hours of the day. Rich Edmonston, Newport

Beach’s traffic engineer, said the city investigated the area several

years ago and found that not enough elementary school children were

passing through it to warrant a supervisor.

“The standards for crossing guards specifically say they’re for

elementary-age children,” Edmonston said. “My understanding is the

presumption is that older children can get across the street on their

own.”

Earlier this week, a staff member from Edmonston’s office did a

new check on the school during the hours before class and after

dismissal. Edmonston said he expected to have the results by the end

of the week.

However, a number of Eastbluff parents are less willing to wait

for action. Every full day of school since Monday, two adults at a

time have stood at the intersections and guided children across the

street -- not only Eastbluff students, but also older ones from the

neighboring schools. Mannon said that, surprisingly, it was the

middle-schoolers from Corona del Mar High School who thanked her the

most.

The guard duty has proved difficult, though. Thursday, the Newport

Beach Police Department sent an officer to Eastbluff to inform the

parents that they could not hold stop signs or direct traffic;

according to Sgt. Bill Hartford, doing so requires professional

training. The parents had already planned to stop their guard duty

after Friday, citing safety concerns.

“It’s a personal liability issue,” said Annie Lindt, who started

the petition drive with Mannon. “We are not trained to be crossing

guards, and we do not feel it is a safe situation for us or our

children.”

Mannon said that when she was guiding children across the street,

some drivers sped by her anyway.

“It’s scary to be out there,” she said. “I’ve had women literally

try to run me down because they’re so mad we’re trying to hold up

traffic.”

Next week, the parents plan to distribute fliers and hang posters

to rally support for their cause. Edmonston said the issue would be

on the Traffic Affairs Committee’s upcoming agenda, and that the

committee would take the matter to the City Council if it saw the

need for crossing guards.

The city has already handled pedestrian problems in the Eastbluff

neighborhood this summer, as it moved the crosswalk in front of

Corona del Mar High after some parents cited safety issues. The high

school is currently patrolled by a crossing guard.